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Resolutions

Today we’re christening an experimental blog shared by two writers – a twenty-something in the thick of millennial culture and thirty-something just on the cusp of it. We’re writing about the past, present and future of our careers and lives, independently.

To kick off the year (and our blog), we listed our resolutions, without comparison or brainstorming. Simply one subject, two writers, ten years apart.

-Melissa and Kelly

*****

Melissa

You should know, I rarely make real resolutions, and in being honest with you and with myself, I would never EVER put them in writing. Making promises always felt like a guaranteed path to disappointment. Perhaps that makes me appear jaded (as one friend tells me, single women in their 30’s are), but drawing up a blueprint of the year to come feels constricting to me. I prefer to view each day like a blank canvas—anything can happen…right?

That being said, in the spirit of this project and confirming my dedication to this blog and my co-author Kelly, I’ve managed to muster up a few vows that I’d like to keep this year.

Here goes:

Unsubscribe.

This year I am going to clean out my inbox, my mailbox and my timeline. Dealing with messages that I’m not interested in is a waste of time and is, frankly, annoying. It’s time that I set up a spam account to collect all the spamy gifts my online shopping habits have awarded me. Also, a very very enthusiastic “so long!” to Cheryl’s Cookies, Victoria Secret, and Oriental Trading Co. catalogs. Hopefully this act will help save a tree. Facebook has this awesome feature that allows you to remain friends with people for chat and occasional stalking without having to see their daily, hourly, minutely musings in your timeline—thank you Zuckerberg for “unsubscribe.”

Move.

I think everyone resolves to work out in the new year, but I had a much needed wakeup call on my recent visit back to NY for the Holidays. In between stuffing my face with struffoli and drowning my sorrows in eggnog, I came across photos of me from the holidays in 2010—pre cross-country migration. Have I let this motor-centric Los Angeles lifestyle get the best of me? Sure I’m eating healthier in the land of the gluten free and the home of the vegans, but hell, I’m sitting down a whole lot more and moving a whole lot less. New York afforded a free and effective daily workout that was a survival necessity in the city. If you wanted to get anywhere in a rush, and loathed the smell of hot urine baking on a rail track as much as I did, you walked. Even if I don’t join the gym this year (hate hate hate the gym), it will be my goal to take at least one significant walk each day.

Sing.

My desire to sing again has finally manifested itself in nightmares. Last night, for example, I dreamt that in a one-on-one training sesh with a vocal coach, all parties in the room were embarrassed by the Harvey Firestein frog in my throat—So much so, that my instructor would not allow me to sing in this year’s pageant. Not only was I mortified, but the lesbian girlfriend I somehow had in this dream was quite disappointed when I told her I would not be able to serenade her from the stage. Maybe it’s time I really get my singing chops back. The plan isn’t to land the lead role in the adult ed performance of West Side Story, but maybe work up the nerve to get my karaoke on.

Find One Good Friend.

Since my move here two years ago, I haven’t allowed myself to get close to anyone. It probably started out as a defense mechanism when I was uncertain I would be spending more than a month here, but, regretfully, it has turned into somewhat of a lifestyle choice. I’m too cool to be a hermit…or maybe the fact that I think I’m too cool for anything is what is keeping me from making good friends. Maybe this makes me sound 16 instead of 30, but I want sleepovers with pedicures. I want a Happy Hour buddy and I want someone to keep me company on my daily walk—or to go on late night Trader Joe’s runs with.

This year I will invest in a friend. Currently accepting applications.

*****

Kelly

Improve my dental health

Lessen my arm fat

Paint my feelings

No, no. Those are just dumb goals. They resolve nothing, I thought on December 31. I started writing this entry then, but stopped until today, because I got pissed off.

In a sort of irrational manner, in a lens that you see the world through when you’re menstrual (if you don’t get your period, you could compare this mood to when you find out Dumbledore dies in Harry Potter 6), I kept going over in my head how trivial of a holiday New Years is, how it’s a forced excuse to celebrate, how I really don’t want to drink on a Tuesday, and how resolutions are fleeting. I was like a nagging toddler, stomping my feet in protest every time I tried to perceive anything with optimism.

But today, now that New Years Eve is over and we can all shut up about our weight loss plans, I think that my grunted exhales over self-reflection were a sort of embodiment of 2013 as a whole – one big fucking life adjustment that all happened by my decisions, but somehow felt out of my control.

In 2013, I went from living in a blender of diversity and working in a Trader Joes freezer in Berkeley, CA to starting a career in my alma mater town of San Luis Obispo, leaving a city I loved to one I thought I would never come back to. It was that whole life-is-a-book-and-its-a-new-chapter-unfolding thing. And after six months, I successfully transferred from my entry-level position in social media to copywriting. And that’s where I am now.

But I’m discontent.

Not with my job – I love my job – and not with my relationships, but with my thoughts. Second guessing and being indecisive. Regretting. Not speaking up when I should. Wishing I was somewhere else. And 2014 will be the year to find maybe a little more clarity, because 2013 taught me what it’s supposed to be like in your twenties: an anxious string of years where you’re inexperienced, under qualified, and can’t figure out what you want to do with yourself.

With that, I’m simply resolving to keep 2013 in my back pocket as a lesson of how well time teaches, and pledging to address restlessness and discontent, because, for lack of a more elegant reason, #YOLO.